Jon Mittelhauser, a former member of the team that created original web browser MOSAIC and a founding engineer at Netscape Communications Corporation, is bringing his experience  to OpenStack-based private cloud appliance vendor Nebula, the company started by former NASA IT executives and OpenStack project founders, as its new VP of Engineering.

Mittelhauser’s resume is one of the most impressive in the tech sector: Not only did he helm MOSAIC, as I mentioned before, he was also responsible for the initiatives that made browser plug-ins, Java and JavaScript integral to the modern web experience, especially within the enterprise. Before landing at Nebula, Mittelhauser was the chief of software at OnLive, which provides cloud-hosted, streaming video games and, more recently, cloud desktops. With Mittelhauser’s arrival at Nebula, co-founder Devin Carlen will shift his focus to serving as Chief Technology Officer.

Nebula, for its part, is one of the more visible new companies in the OpenStack ecosystem – Nebula co-founder and CEO Chris Kemp, formerly the CTO of NASA and a co-founder of the OpenStack project – gave the keynote address at the cloud platform’s conference in San Francisco a few weeks ago. Kemp is, for better or worse, the voice and face of the OpenStack movement, and Nebula is in the public eye.

That said, while OpenStack still has a lot to prove, Mittelhauser’s arrival legitimizes both Nebula and the open source cloud platform in a real way. Mittelhauser might not have the same spotlight as fellow MOSAIC and Netscape founder Marc Andreessen, but when Nebula has one of the fathers of the modern web experience on board, it probably means there’s something to all this hype.